Junior C hockey club moving forward

HUNTSVILLE - The move ahead for junior C hockey begins this week.
Andy Cooke, the former co-general manager of the Huntsville Otters junior A hockey club and the interim chair of proposed junior C hockey team in Huntsville, was to meet Monday night in Alliston with officials with the Georgian Bay Mid Ontario Junior C Hockey League to finalize details about the town becoming the loop’s ninth member.
A group, spearheaded by the Town of Huntsville and the Huntsville Minor Hockey Association, is poised to join the league.
The move was created before the contraction of the Huntsville Otters from the Ontario Junior Hockey League, which occurred on March 2.
Cooke said on Thursday that Ontario Hockey Association president Brent Ladds told him the junior C league said they would welcome Huntsville back into the fold.
“They told (Ladds) they would like to have two teams up in this neighbourhood, maybe in Parry Sound or somewhere like that, which wouldn’t necessarily be bad for us either.”
The last time a team from Huntsville won the junior C championship was back in 1987 when the old Huntsville Blair McCanns won the then-named Georgian Bay league title. That team also made it to the league finals the next two seasons, and captured the regular season title in 1988. They lost both finals to Stayner.
The Georgian Mid-Ontario Junior C Hockey League is the result of the 1994 merger of the Mid-Ontario Junior C Hockey League and the short-lived Georgian Junior C Hockey League. The league began as a junior D league in the early 1970s.
During the 2004-05 season, the league played an interlocking schedule with the Western Junior C Hockey League. The Georgian Bay league won the series with 44 victories, 32 losses, and six ties.
The main difference between junior A and C hockey is the cost of operating a franchise. Some junior A teams have budgets in excess of $200,000, while Cooke said that the junior C team could run anywhere from $60,000 to $100,000.
While junior A teams have no boundary restrictions, C teams are restricted to their home territories from which to draw local players. The C teams could have four imports, or non-local players on the roster, but these players would be reclassified as local players if they were to join the team the next season.
Bob Adams, a Huntsville resident and the co-convener of the Georgian Bay league has stated that the new Huntsville franchise could draw local players from the Parry Sound-Muskoka area and possibly from Haliburton and Almaguin as well, which includes as many as six minor hockey organizations.
In the meantime, the steering committee, comprised of Cooke, minor hockey and town officials, has put out the call for help with developing the proposed hockey club.
The club is looking for a general manager, a manager of hockey operations, a business manager, and volunteers to assist with finance and public relations.
Those people interested in any of the positions are asked to email kari.lambe@huntsville.ca.
Cooke said that some people have been tentatively identified for some of the roles, including coaching, but he declined to say at this time who has been approached for the positions.
“I have had a very good candidate come forward to be the head coach. I can’t say who it is because we haven’t got back to him about the job. It is a local person who is a good strong candidate. We also have a strong candidate for the general manager. People are coming forward to help out in a positive way.”
Cooke said more details about the progress on the junior C team will be made available following Monday’s meeting.